I have sown the first seeds of the season. In my main best soil, I made rough rows, and I sprinkled peas in them. It is a variety that is used both for food and as a green fertilizer, and I am only sowing it for the second purpose here. They should grow a bit before the end of May, when I can finally plant various squash/pumpkins, corn, and beans in their stead. I won’t work them into the soil; I will just chop and drop them in place.

And then I was working on this.

Like I said in the last article, I tilled a new approximately 21 m² patch. I intend to try to grow naked oats in it.

First, I bought organic naked oats in the fall to try them out in the kitchen. I liked them as a substitute for rice, so they are a viable addition to my food even if I cannot process them into anything other than whole grains (like flakes or flour). With that being decided, I tried to see if they germinate, to test if they are a viable crop in my garden. Unfortunately, they did not germinate at all. I was searching the whole winter for a supplier that would sell me organic naked oats in a small amount, but all the webshops I found were selling the grains from the same supplier. Until two weeks ago, when I coincidentally found another supplier. I bought the seeds, and they had 95%  germination rate. So I calculated how much I need to sow on my patch, I divvied it into 20 cups and went on to sow 20 rows.

I do not have any sowing thingamajig (yet), and the soil was worked for the first time, so making the rows was not exactly easy. I kept hitting pieces of turf the whole time, and my pile of stones grew by another three buckets. In the end, I had to make a row with a hoe, sprinkle the seeds in it, cover them by digging the next row, etc. I ended up with a really nice, flat, 3×7 m mini-field in the end.

The soil is not dry, but not too wet either, so I watered it a bit, and I will probably water it a few more times until the seeds pop out. After a cold and somewhat snowy winter, the spring is now abnormally sunny and warm.

I really hope it goes well and I get some meaningful harvest out of it. If it goes tits up, at least I have already got another 21 m² of arable land, which should be easier to work in subsequent years.

So far, I have managed to work in the garden without hurting my back this year. Let’s hope that holds.

The weather became suddenly very unseasonably warm and sunny. Essentially, we have spring weather now, and the “mud season” after the snow melted was very short. And I have spent a few days outdoors, working in my garden as much as I can. I am pleased to say that so far, I do not have any back pain, except for tiredness. After almost a year of nearly constant lower-back pains, that feels absolutely great. I hope it lasts.

I managed to de-branch all the longer and thicker wood pieces. I will probably not use any for beans this year, because I think I have found a better, permanent solution, about which I will write at some later date. Right now, I will simply cut these into 50 cm pieces that fit into my stove, bag them, and weigh them so I know how much I have.

I managed to shred, bag, and weigh most of the thinner pieces that are worth using as firewood (i.e., poplars and maples). I cut a few pieces of wood, and I weighed them fresh and then dry, in order to be able to estimate how much dry mass I have based on how much they weigh now. I know, therefore, that poplars and willows lose 60% mass when drying, maples and ashes lose 40%.

All that remains to shred now are thin twigs from trimming the hedge and the raspberries. Those won’t be bagged and weighed, they will be used as mulch on my vegetable beds.

And as the title says, I started tilling the soil. I tilled the patch where the butternut squash were last year, and I enlarged it from ca 5 m² to ca 12 m². And yesterday I tilled the approximately 21 m² patch that you see in the picture. It is in the place of one of the three Three Sisters experiments of last year. On this specific patch, the beans froze, the corn failed, and the zucchini underperformed really badly. But at least the soil was worked a bit because of that, so it was slightly easier to turn with a garden fork than if it were completely untouched.

I will need to break the big lumps with an electric hoe and flatten the area a bit. And since I finally managed to get my hands on viable seeds of naked oats, I will try to grow that in here. Oats are not too picky about soil quality, but I will probably use some synthetic fertilizers to boost it up a bit. Next year, I will plant some legumes here to boost the soil naturally. If soy beans work out well, this will be their next-year’s home. If not, then green peas or bush beans.

Technically fruits, in the kitchen usually used as vegetables – those are the things that I choose to call fruigetables, to avoid any “whell, akshually…”. This post is going to be mostly about tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, and similar.

As you can see, there are three greenhouses in the map. There is a reason for that – in a self-sustainable setting, reliance on outside inputs should be reduced, including various -icides and fertilizers. And three greenhouses would allow a three-year rotation between these:

Soybeans, beans, peppers, tomatoes, winter squash, and, eventually, also radishes and peas as pre-crops. I think with greenhouses this size, it should be easy to grow about 50 kg of these crops together, adding about 16 Mcal to our tally. But more importantly than calories, these would add other nutrients and, most importantly, flavors. With two-three varieties of tomato and pepper, a wide span of variously flavored sauces and chutneys can be made, all the way from sweet, across savoury, to hot. The soybeans would take care of fixing nitrogen and breaking the cycles of nightshade family-specific diseases and pests.

The rodent-proof raised beds could further provide, in my estimate, 20 kg of green peas (as a pre-crop), 15 kg of carrots, 15 kg of onions+garlic, and about 50 kg of various pumpkins and squash, providing an additional 42 Mcal and more nutrients and flavors.

I think these are conservative estimates, averages, that account for occasional glut and occasional crop failure. Most of these crops can be preserved in various ways – pickled, dehydrated, in compotes – and some can keep fresh for several months over winter (winter squash).

With this, we are almost there as far as plant-based foodstuffs go. The next thing to look at will be fruits from our orchard and fruit shrubbery.

In our map, we have five 100 m2 fields to grow food. Five fields for the necessary crop rotation to ensure the soil recovers and does not get depleted. Because self-sustainability also includes minimising dependence on other outward inputs. In this post, let’s concentrate mainly on the crop rotation.

I personally consider these crops to be essential for growing in the fields each year in this rotational order:

1. Potatoes – 1 field, estimated caloric output 308 Mcal p.a. with 4 kg/m² production on average. This is the heavy lifter each year, guaranteeing enough carbs for bare survival, if not actual sustenance.
2. Soy/Beans – 1 field, estimated caloric output 100 Mcal p.a. with 0,3 kg/m² production on average. These produce both carbs and proteins, and they fix nitrogen into the soil at the same time.
3. Oats/Wheat/Spelta – 2 fields, estimated caloric output 230 Mcal p.a. with 0,3 kg/m² production on average. Again source of both carbs and protein (in combination with beans/peas, a complete protein), plus bedding straw for animals.
4. Alfalfa  – 1 field, essentially as a rest to fix nitrogen and to grow some high-quality hay to feed the rabbits. Also, part of this resting field could and should be reserved for the composting of both chicken and rabbit manure, as well as any organic scraps that cannot be eaten by them.

This way, the five fields could produce, in my estimation, 641 Mcal p.a. That means two-thirds of the yearly needs of one person living an active lifestyle. And let’s make one thing clear – trying self-sustainability is not for someone who does not like potatoes and exercise.

The remaining third of calories would need to be provided by the rest of the garden, and about that next time.

 

It is again that time of the year when, whenever the weather allows it, I have to cut and prune all the trees in my garden. Above all, the coppice. If I wait a bit longer, the trees start to pump sap into the wood, and it will be more difficult to cut, as well as the cuts would be more dangerous to the trees. I am not doing a full harvest this year, but I did cut most of the maples and some of the thicker poplar and willow poles. Together with the pile of raspberry and Symphoricarpos twigs, it looks impressive when piled up.

You have already seen the front pile. The middle pile is the poplars and willows, and the rear pile is the maples. It looks big in the picture, but it is not much wood. As I said, the first pile is not worth much as firewood and thus will be mostly shredded and used as mulch. Today, I started de-branching the other two piles, and the work is progressing slowly.

Some of the thicker and straighter poles will go towards growing beans over the summer, and thus they will be processed into firewood in the fall. The rest will be cut into ca 50 cm pieces that fit whole into my oven. The thinner twigs will also be cut into 50 cm pieces or shredded into chips, depending on what is easier. These are dense enough to be worth burning (together with the thicker Symphoricarpos twigs), but I might use them as mulch too. It depends on the amount.

And a little cross-over with the self-sustainability posts:

Each time a poplar or willow is cut, they sprout an overabundance of thin twigs in the spring. Most of them die off in the same year due to overcrowding and overshadowing. I am currently thinning these dead twigs because they make other works, like mowing grass or even walking through the coppice, difficult. But if I had rabbits, guinea pigs, sheep, or goats, these could be pruned in early summer when still green and fresh and fed to them. They could also be dried up as “tree hay” and fed to them in winter. This is, in my opinion, the main reason why an omnivorous diet would beat a vegan diet in the self-sufficiency game, because only herbivorous animals are capable of converting inedible plant material into edible protein, thus utilizing slightly less land overall.

I am currently using my coppice as a vegan would. It is a conscious choice on my part – I am not attempting full self-sustainability (I do not have enough land for three people anyway), and the additional workload connected with having to care for the animals is not worth it to me personally. So I am buying all my animal products, and I concentrate on maximizing the plant-based outputs of my garden.

I wrote last year about my sewage cleaning facility  –click-. I actually designed that system myself, and I think it is a good design for a self-sustainable land plot. For just one person, it would not even need to be as big as mine is, although it is about twice the size on the hypothetical map. Here is what I think would be ideal to do with that space.

1. A 5 m³ underground, anaerobic, 3-chamber septic tank. This is the first stage of cleaning, and it separates all the liquid and water-soluble stuff from insoluble sludge. The sludge needs to be pumped out once a year with three people; with one person, it would last much, much longer. And since this structure is underground, it is not accounted for in the map – only the third fourth stage is.
2. An underground sand filter or biofilter. Which one to use depends on the local geography. Sand filters need a bigger slope, and biofilters deal better with being constantly submerged.
3. A 70 m² gravel field sown with reed canary grass, Phalaris arundinacea. Why this particular species and not the common reed Phragmites australis that I use in my own cleaning facility? Because unlike common reed,  reed canary grass can be mown two to three times a year for hay to feed the rabbits, whilst being just as effective at cleaning the water with its roots throughout the year. With a gravel field this big, I think the water would be even cleaner at the end than mine is, which is pretty clean.
4. An 8 to 10 m³ underground cistern, into which goes not only the clean water from the sewage cleaning facility, but also all the rainwater from all the buildings.
5. A small pond between two rows in the coppice, into which would go the overflow from the cistern. If there were a well somewhere on the property, it would need to be at a distance that a hydrologist determines as safe (in my case, 30 m was seen as ample).

That way, the sewage would serve a secondary purpose as a reservoir of utility water (mostly for watering the garden) in a drought.

Removal of insoluble sludge is the one thing that cannot be dealt with legally in a self-sustainable way where I live, but that does not mean it cannot be done safely, just that the laws are a bit overcautious (for good reasons). In the part of the coppice that is furthest from the well (and neighbour’s well), it could be safely disposed of on the ground once a year, ideally in the spring, in a pile of old, dead leaves or wood chips or both. It would be smelly for a bit, but nature is really good at dealing with shit, and one person does not produce so much of it to cause any trouble. After a few months, that pile of leaves would decompose and transform into compost safe enough to recycle nutrients to the fields. Which are the most interesting parts of all this, IMO, so that is the part about which I will write next time.

Edit: corrected numbering typo.

Let’s talk about some nice, long, hard wood. Sorry, hardwood.

The coppice is divided into five parts for a reason, and for the same reason, it would actually take five years for it to reach its full potential.

In medieval times, this is exactly how they grew firewood. They did not have chainsaws, and cutting a trunk as thick as your forearm is way easier than one as thick as, ehm, trunk. It also dries quicker and is easier to handle allround. So trees were either pollarded or coppiced, with firewood being cut and bound into faggots for transport, then dried, and subsequently used for heating and cooking.

The difference between a pollard and a coppice is mostly the height at which the trees are cut. A coppice is cut almost at the ground level, and a pollard is cut at shoulder height or higher. In both cases, the goal is to get a tree to branch out and create several upright trunks. When these trunks are then cut, the remaining stump creates new ones again. Some trees deal better with being coppiced (hazel), some deal better with being pollarded (basswood), many just do not care that much, and many others are not suitable for this at all.

Almost all softwoods are unsuitable because they will not survive the technique. The sole exception is yew, which was sometimes coppiced for bowstaves, but not very much because it grows extremely slowly, and it was usually cheaper and easier to plunder the wild forests (end of a tangent).

In our self-sustainability attempt, it would be best to plant most of the coppice with fast-growing poplar hybrids. I get ca 1 kg/m² on average with difficulties and suboptimal maintenance, and Google tells me that 0,7 kg/m² yearly on average is essentially the minimum. Therefore, I conclude that 2000 m² coppice should easily produce over 1,5 tonne of firewood yearly on average, and that should be enough to keep one human in a small, well-insulated domicile alive all winters and comfortable most, at least where I live. In colder climates, a bigger coppice would be needed, and vice versa, of course.

On the very north end of the coppice, I think it would be good to plant one-two wallnut/hickory trees, and a few hazels for nuts. And throughout the coppice, any native hardwoods that sprout there should be encouraged in addition to the planted poplars. Eminently suitable are ash (Fraxinus), maple (Acer), birch (Betula), hornbeam (Carpinus), and wild hazel.

How would one go about setting up such a coppice? In the first year, the whole area would need to be planted with circa 30 cm long twig cuts from poplar trees, buried at 50 cm intervals in north-south rows 1,5 m apart. In the second year, before sprouting, they all would need to be cut down at the desired height (I am cutting mine at about waist height, because that is the easier height to use the tools). In the third year, four fifths would need to be cut, and one would be left intact. In the fourth year, three-fifths would be cut, and two would be left. In the fifth year, two fifths would be cut, and three would be left. And in the sixth year, finally,  only one fifth would be cut, and that would be the way to go forward – always cutting the longest growing fifth of the plot. This would maximize the harvest of firewood about the thickness of a human forearm.

But that is not all, the coppice could also serve as a source of food all that time. It would be full of insects, and thus it would be eminently suitable as a pasture for chickens and rabbits. There would not be much grass growing under the trees, but there would be some that could be either grazed or made into hay. And lastly, the trees would sprout an overabundance of twigs each spring, from which only some survive and become firewood. Many of those twigs can be harvested throughout the summer and used as fodder for rabbits, either directly or dry. I estimate that together with other supplements to be discussed later, it should be possible to feed five egg-laying hens, a rooster, and one male and two-three female rabbits to provide their offspring yearly for sacrifice on the kitchen altar. If that makes you uncomfortable, I understand, but that is the best way to make the most out of the coppice.

I will write about the sewage cleaning facility next.

The weather is still cold, but the frost is no longer so severe that seeding potatoes cannot be shipped. Thus, they were shipped and arrived today.

Funny thing about potatoes – I have grown potatoes for over thirty years, and only this year I learned that they are divided not only by vegetation length from early to late, but also into determinate and indeterminate types. Determinate types start growing, set the tubers in one layer once, and then bloom and die irrespective of whether they are hilled up or not. They are mostly the very early and early varieties. Indeterminate potatoes keep growing and setting bulbs along the stem in multiple layers if they are being hilled up. They are mostly the late varieties.

This year, I bought four varieties:

• Dali – an early to intermediate potato variety, with yellow-skinned tubers. You might remember that I grew it before, and I bought 10 kg of seed potatoes this year because it is tried and tested for my region, and they can be dehydrated without discoloring. The other three varieties are new (for my garden). I will probably plant these in soil and hill them up. I would like to maximize my harvest, and I could not find out if they are determinate or not.
• Camel – early variety, red-skinned tubers. Again, I could not find whether they are determinate or not, probably yes. They will be planted on top of the grass. I bought 5 kg to test it out.
• Agria – medium to late, yellow-skinned variety. From what I could find, it should be indeterminate, so it will definitely go into the soil, and I will hill it up as much as possible. It is also allegedly more starchy than the varieties I grew so far, and it should therefore be more suitable for French fries and chips (I tried to make chips last year, it was a disaster). I bought 10 kg because I got hyped up by the description on the webshop – allegedly, it has high yields and big tubers. We shall see if it beats Dali, who holds in my garden a record of growing 100 kg from 10 kg of seed, with tubers up to 900 g.
• Bellarosa – very early, determinate variety, red-skinned. It should also be drought-resistant, and thus supremely suited to planting on top of the soil with the Ruth-Stout method. I bought 5 kg to test it out.

So those are my potato planting plans for 2026. I hope to grow at least 300 kg of potatoes, if the weather is favorable.

I had fun today drawing this little map. As per convention, north is on top.

I chose a 50×60 m rectangle because it allowed me to get exactly 3000 m², unlike a 54×54 m square (and drawing meters to a decimal point is pure nonsense). And whereas a square would, theoretically, need the least amount of fencing, the difference is just 4 m overall.

There is a logic behind all these placements and orientations, and I will talk about them in subsequent posts. In this one, I will talk a bit just about the utility buildings.

The buildings are positioned around a small front yard and close to each other, so a person can easily move between them when needed, and the walkways are short enough to clear snow with ease.

A one-story house with a cellar solves one requirement from the “storage” post, and the attic can work as an additional storage space for junk, as is usually the case. I store electric gardening tools in mine when not in use. 10×8 m would be plenty of space for one person, which is what this whole mental exercise is about.

The toolshed, workshop, and garage form one big unit. And the storage barn is as close to the house as it is to the toolshed and the workshop. The garage is 6×6 m, which should be big enough not only for a car, but also for, as previously mentioned, a small tractor, a lawnmower, a verticutter, and assorted accessories.

So, we have our not-so-small plot of land, we have the house and all the storage buildings, and now let’s look briefly at all the tools that one person would need to be self-sufficient in firewood and food. If I were to write it all, it would be  quite a long list, so I will try to be brief

• Full set of hand tools for gardening, orcharding, and landscaping, including such old-school tools as a scythe and sickle. No matter what, there will be a lot of earth moving, so a lot of work with a spade, a pickaxe, and a shovel will be involved.
• Woodworking and woodcutting hand tools – saws, a hatchet, an axe, and a machete.
• Some power tools, like at least a small chainsaw, and a small electric hoe.
• Some medium-sized gardening machinery – a verticutter, a lawnmower, and a small tractor with a plough, a rotary tiller, a harrow, and maybe even a small cart.
• A deer and hog-proof wire fence.

Let’s not forget that we are trying to do all the necessary work to feed and keep warm one person on 3000 m². Ideally, it would be a square of land 55×55 m2. It might not look that big on a map, but walking it back and forth the whole day, dragging dead trees behind you, or carrying sacks of potatoes, is not easy (I am talking from experience). And if we are trying to do without a mule or an ox, machinery is necessary.

I must say, I do have fun with this mental exercise. We will look at how to partition the land next.